Near To You
by follow the stars
Summary: The Jude that belonged to Tommy is almost gone completely now, and all that’s left of her is a faded tattoo, a faded Tommy inside my wrist old photographs, ticket stubs, and memories that receded into the back of my mind.


**Near To You**

AN: Song used is Near To You by A Fine Frenzy, this is my first fanfic I hope that you all enjoy it and read and review. Rating is for my horrid potty mouth. - Kaitie

_**He and I had something beautiful  
**__**But so dysfunctional, it couldn't last**_

We were together for only a couple of years, but we had known each other for over three years prior to that.

The years that we had been together were two of the best and worst years of my life rolled into one. As far as I was concerned, he was the perfect man for me. As friends we were good, I told him my hopes, my dreams and my deepest fears, and in turn he lent me an eager ear and told me all of his.

We had something special; that much was obvious, and not only to us, but to our boss, our colleagues and friends alike, the same ones that had to put up with our constant bouts of fighting and flirting at the most inopportune times.

I wont lie, not everyone saw him and I together as a good thing, there was a lot of resistance on all sides, and because of that it wasn't the same magical, beautiful thing that I had envisioned since I was fifteen years old, but still, I had been a child again, and at eighteen and a half, over three years later, I still loved him just as much as I ever had before.

Although I was eighteen, I wasn't exactly a seasoned expert with relationships, my last one ended lamely; the blatant love I had for my producer caused a way overdue break up between Speed and myself, and after that relationship, I was alone for over a year and a half before true love came to me in the form of Tom Quincy.

I can't explain how we got together, who said what, who started it when, I can't tell any of those things because – truth be told – I don't even know the answers myself. All that I can say for sure is that it was all of the things that a person could ever want from a relationship, minus the tendency of a slight wandering eye every time a model/actress hybrid walked past him.

The relationship that he and I had is something that I could never replicate if I tried. There were ups, and of course there were downs – we were, after all, still Tommy and Jude – but most of all, beyond stupid mistakes and misunderstandings, there was just us, in all of our fucked up glory.

He and I, we had wanted each other for years, and badly, but after we got together, the novelty of the whole forbidden fruit concept kind of just wore off, and in the end we were just two slightly screwed up people that would never be able to have any kind of lasting relationship with each other.

I loved him so, but I let him go

_**Coz I knew he'd never love me back**_

I'd never loved anybody the way that I had loved him, so freely, so passionately and so utterly completely. He was my producer, my friend, my rock, my lover, my first true love – in short, I guess he was my everything. The one person that despite it all, I still can't forget, even now, after all has been said and done he still remains that elusive someone that I spent so many sleepless nights over, thinking about him, thinking about us, and remembering so very vividly memories of days past – the memories of the better days of us are the only ones that refuse to leave my mind – none of them ever left my heart.

Tommy and I were sweet as lovers, and it was only then, during, or after sex that I would let myself reveal my true feelings to him.

I loved him more than any words could ever say, not that I didn't try, singing song after song for him, but I realized slowly, some time after the fourteen month mark of our anniversary that I couldn't have him anymore, not when he wasn't mine to begin with, when he hadn't been mine in far too long.

He didn't love me; I had come to the conclusions after spending countless nights in his arms, not feeling a thing from him, except for, of course the obvious physical signs, his heart wasn't there. He just wasn't in it; even though the passion still burned, as I can only imagine that it always would, I could tell, I just knew that his heart, it didn't lay with me. Somehow, it was then that I wondered if it ever had…

"We have to talk." I'd told him one day, my voice was weary and betrayed the strength and I wore the defiant look on my face, the one that I'd been practicing for far too long. His nonchalance that week in particular, it had been grating on my nerves more than usual, and I was just too tired to pick a fight about it, and that, coupled with the fact that our relationship was going neither forward nor backwards, I just didn't know what to do about it.

I crossed my arms over my chest, pushing a few hairs from in front of my face away, of course I knew what I had to do, but did I want to? No, that was a whole other story. His eyes found mine, both of us were tired, weary and defeated, Tommy, however feigned annoyance and his fallen bad boy image came back to life, as he folded his strong arms over his chest, looking me right in the eyes.

"Then talk." His muscles tensed under his polo shirt. I remember the way that I shook my head at him in disappointment as if I had just learnt of a deep, dark secret, or of a torrid love affair. I took in a breath, as if I hadn't breathed air before; "This – us," I made motions to the gap between us with an arm. "It's just not working. As much as I love you, it just isn't working." By then I was only four months shy of twenty, as well as a soon-to-be working actress, with a good eighteen months worth of acting classes under my belt, so it was sufficient to say that it had become easier to lie, and a thousand and one times easier to push the tears back.

He looked relieved when I delivered the news, uncrossing his arms, the lines in his brow diminishing and his eyes shining as if he'd just been freed from sitting in a cell his entire youth for a crime he'd never committed. He looked at me for a second, as if I was an alien. "Thank you, girl." He hugged me (but I was limp, and deadweight in his arms) and I could feel the gratitude coming off of him in waves, but it still didn't serve to curb the grief, the hurt, the incessant pain that I was feeling, and it sure as hell didn't compare to the feeling letting the man I loved with everything inside of me go.

I knew that I was right when I'd assumed that he didn't love me, and for reasons unknown, he left Canada after that day, taking most but not all of his belongings with him to his new life.

I never saw him again after that, although six months later, with a full two-year course in acting under my belt, I still think of him and remember all of the happiness and the joy that he brought to my life in the five years that I'd known him, the three that I'd loved him in an aching silence, and the two that I had wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

When I sit down some days and think of him, usually fondly; I remember it all, but most of all, beyond all the romanticized good times and dramatized bad ones, I just try to remember that he didn't love me after all, that he never would be able to love me back the way that I had loved him so truly, so fully, so unconditionally. It was hard to believe that the days of Tommy and Jude had truly come to an end.

Such pain as this

_**Shouldn't have to be experienced  
**__**I'm still reeling from the loss  
**__**Still a little bit delirious**_

It hurt, I wont lie, to have to have my heart broken by my own hand, or words, I suppose. But he did not love me (a little fact that I have to keep reminding myself of on those bad days where I pine for him) and he would never, could never, love me or need me the way that I had loved him.

Honestly, I think that nobody should ever have to go through that great pain, the hurt that comes along with such a harsh heartbreak and truthfully, the sting of love is the worst when the only thing that you had ever done was just love somebody who was incapable of ever loving you back – that, my friends, is the greatest pain one can know in life.

For so long after, I felt so hurt, so betrayed, so wronged by him; I had loved him with all I had and he just simply had not.

Love was a war, and I was just another casualty of it.

It felt like I had been stabbed in the back and then shot in my heart. The knife was turned by myself, with salt thrown in the wounds just to make it hurt more, add a little insult to injury, but it still didn't even begin to compare to the pain in my heart. It felt like there was this enormous chunk of my heart missing, as if it had been pulled out with Cupid's poisonous arrow; taken out of my chest and thrown out like yesterdays garbage. At the mere thought, I felt suddenly ill and woozy, and then, there you were Jamie, ready to catch me before I fell (but I fell hard, nonetheless), just waiting for Tommy to fuck it all up so that you could pick up all the broken pieces of me… and finally all your wishes and dreams had come true – it was your time to shine… but there would always be that one little piece that you could never put together, that you could never find, like a puzzle piece that would never fit with the others; it was the piece of my heart that would never belong to you.

It's been months now, since I've seen or heard from Tommy, but every once in a while when the Valium works a little less well then it usually does (this is, of course, only the excuse that I give when people ask me) I find my thoughts drifting back to him; the one that got away, that one man that captured my heart so very effortlessly and at the same time caused me so much pain; so much pain that I didn't even know that it was possible to have so much hurt caused by the same solitary person.

I still play it over in my head, wondering where the hell it was that I went wrong, what I would change, and precisely how it is that I would change it, if I could, that is, but time stands still for no man, no woman – I know this all too well.

Yes, it's hard, and yes, it hurts, but things can only really go up from here; somewhere that I feel right now is the very meaning of rock bottom, maybe even worse.

While I still hurt deeply, and I'm trying to let go of all that is the essence of Tommy Quincy (all blue eyes and perfect hair) the wound still aches and it feels as fresh as it did the day I got it…

The day I told him goodbye.

Near to you, I am healing

At twenty-one years old, I should be happier, I'm _twenty-one _and _finally, _but the thing is, I'm not his twenty-one, I'm not his anything – not anymore, but life becomes a little easier knowing that I'm not alone, it's even so much easier when I'm with you, because for some reason or another, you aren't even shoving it in my face that it's all my own fault that I'm feeling this way, and at my twenty-first birthday party, a huge G-Major bash, you don't even bother to point out that it's been _three months_ already.

You've helped me through a lot of crap in the past, and once more, here you are to try to help me feel better again, and many months later, it feels as if it's actually beginning to work, and one day, I may just be whole again.

But I'm wary now, five months later, still wounded, still hurting in a way that you would never be able to understand.

My wounds begin to heal six months after the fact, but I can already tell that one day they'll be opened, and the sad truth of the matter is that I'll probably be the one to do it, and once these wounds, still raw and fleshy, get a chance to heal, once I'm fully over Tommy, on a day which may be closer than I think or maybe further away than I'll ever be able to imagine, I know that I'll still carry the scars on my heart with me, to forevermore remind me of the wounds that I continued picking at and infected with the poison that ran through my dirty veins.

But it's taking so long

_**Coz though he's gone  
**__**And you are wonderful  
**__**It's hard to move on**_

The months increased, eight, nine, ten, and slowly it became a year since I let him go off, a whole twelve months since I'd lost all that I'd ever learnt to believe in.

The hurt still hasn't stopped, I've just learnt to live with the never-ending pain that ceased to dull, and my heart, which is now once more safe inside my chest, it no longer beats in the steady rhythm that it used to beat to before it was broken.

He's been gone for a whole year now, out of my life – presumably for good.

A year and I'm still not okay.

A year, and my music is still suffering.

One year on and I still haven't healed, but slowly, I know that I'm getting there, and I also know that I would heal much faster if I didn't constantly pick at my wounds, pick apart my most cherished memories, but I can't help it, it's there and it satisfies the itch that so desperately needs scratching.

You are an amazing person Jamie Andrews, I know that and so do you, but my heart has ceased to beat, and as wonderful, as amazing and perfect as you may be, it simply wont beat for you because – simply put – you'll just never be Tommy.

I know that he's gone, I know that! But it's still hard, because even a year on nothing so far has managed to help me get over him completely. No matter how desperately I try, and how much I pray for my heart so be whole again and start beating once more, it just never happens.

"Move on." Sadie tells me – it is a Wednesday afternoon, fifteen months later and I've been moping around the sparsely decorated penthouse apartment all day. "Move. On." She tells me a little more forcefully, pulling the curtain from the ceiling to floor windows, letting the harsh spring sunlight into the gray and dreary apartment. She badgers me neverendingly about all these opportunities that my heartbreak is causing me to miss. "You've got to get over him." She tells me all the time, not that I don't know this already. "You've got something good right under your nose, it's not gonna be there waiting for you forever." She thinks I'm oblivious, and at that, so do you.

You consistently keep dropping me hints that I keep pretending to miss, little things that I blatantly ignore; moments when I know that you are about to ask me out and I cleverly switch the subject on you, or sometimes disconnect the phone call or walk away, always depending on my mood of course.

I want to move on one day, I really do.

Right now though, I'm just not ready for it, but when I am ready for it, I still cant honestly promise that it will be with you – I just can't get your hopes up, not again.

Yet I'm better near to you

All these things, though, they will never change the fact that I'm better when I'm near to you.

When I'm with you I feel like I'm a kid again, not in the fumbly awkward way that makes me think of cringe worthy first kisses, but in the sense that I feel like I could run a thousand laps of a football field and still not be winded.

When I'm with you I feel like everything is new again and I'm still as innocent and untouched as I was seven years ago (God, has it really been that long) when you gave me my first kiss.

You and I have something different And I'm enjoying it cautiously

It's nearing two years now since Tommy's departure from me and from Canada, and one month since I've received the invitation to his wedding. Thomas Anthony DuTois and Ana Kimberly Wilson cordially invite me to their wedding, two days from today.

It's more obvious now that what Tommy and I had is obviously long gone, memories faded with old age, faded far into the past, which is okay because I'm thinking, _hoping, _that one day, one day soon I'll be okay. I'll be fine soon and one day I'll even be able to move on, and maybe it'll even be with you.

It's time now for me to move on – the wedding invitation looks back at me tauntingly, telling me that Tommy's moved on, so why shouldn't I? Besides, I broke up with him, I should be okay to date again, right?

What you and I have, Jamie, it transcends best friends, but it doesn't quite fall into the love category, for me at least. You love me though, this much I know – I can tell. You look at me with this obvious look of affection on your face and focused eyes; it's the same look that I had always reserved for Tommy, and also the one that he had never reserved for me.

What we had isn't what I had with Tommy, I know that and I'm beyond okay with that, because what Tommy and I had was passionate and bound to one day burn out (but it never did) but I think that what we have, what you and I have Andrews, what we could have in the future, it may just outlast them all.

I haven't fully let go of Tommy yet, but I'm getting there, with the desperate hopes that seeing him again, seeing him marry someone else, someone that isn't me will help me get over him, move on from him fully and get closure, while at the same time allowing me to throw myself a little more carelessly into the relationship that I'm trying to build with you.

I wish so much that I could put everything into this relationship that you and I have effortlessly fallen into, I want to be able to invest my all into our relationship, but I find myself unable, I find myself somehow pulling back.

I can't put all my trust in this, in you, because I did it once with Tommy, and all that I ended up with once all of it was said and done was a heart broken into tiny pieces, and almost two years later, there's still that one little piece that I can't find again.

I can't put my heart in this because I've been hurt way too many times to be able to get too emotionally invested in any relationship, the stakes are just too high now, I've had one enormous heart break already, and I feel wise beyond my twenty-two years (nearing twenty-three, thankyouverymuch) and I just know that I can't afford another heartbreak this soon already – it would kill me in every sense of the word.

What we have, it's good. It's uniquely us, and nothing like any of my previous relationships, in particular the one that I had with Tommy.

I like what we have, I do, but it's hard to be able to fully enjoy anything when I'm not fully into this relationship and still so wary of those that want my heart.

I'm battle scarred, I am working oh-so hard

_**To get back who I used to be**_

Today is the day.

It's his wedding and I've flown off to warm, sunny Miami, first class of course, and I'm sitting on my bed in the middle of the hotel room in a Chanel dress that I can barely breath in; I can tell from the way that my cleavage is being pushed together and the way that the dress hugs my figure tightly and ends above the knee, short but still classy, that Tommy would love this dress.

Eventually I change, slipping on a pink halter dress that's less fitted to my body, loose and flowy, a little longer and perfect for the early summer weather. I like this despite the conundrum that presents itself at why I chose something so pink. I would have felt much more comfortable in black, but no matter what I thought, it was not a funeral for my dead relationship.

Its fifty-seven minutes later that I'm finished, makeup, hair and all, and I'm left to think for twenty minutes before I have to leave the lavish hotel that you booked me into for my three-night, four-day stay.

I have to do this on my own, that's what I told you, but that's not exactly it, there's more to it then that. The true fact of the matter is that I don't want you to see me at my weakest moment, one that I'm sure will be Tommy-induced, as they always are.

I slink out of the discreet black sportscar that I rented, taking a seat nearest to the back of the old church and continue to watch them as they exchange promises of forever and other empty words that aren't even worth the luminous white paper Tommy and Ana had been reading them from.

My eyes locked with Tommy's once, and when they did, it was much harder than I'd ever thought to look away; but I had to, he wasn't mine.

I was the first to look away, instead concentrating my heated gaze on the silver shoes that decorated my feet.

I wanted to be free.

I craved my freedom from him and the memory of him that haunted my dreams every night without fail.

I looked back up, my eyes concentrated at the scene playing out before me, while Tommy had his own gaze once again focused on his new bride, as though we'd never had the connection that I can still recall so vividly.

I decided then and there that I had to take back my life, that I had let him control me for so long, even if he _hadn't _known it at the time.

As I watched them exchange their tearful _I do_'s I knew that I had to let go, I had to let him go. He didn't want me anymore (if he ever had) he would never love me, not again, and he had never needed me, I just had to stop needing him so damn much and _hoping and praying _for him to come back into my life.

A little over three years since he'd left and I've only seen him that one fateful time since he left – his wedding day, the momentous occasion of me realizing that I would never truly have him again.

You're getting sick and tired of my pining over nothing more than a ghost now; a black and white memory that I keep playing over and over again in my head. I can feel that you're coming way too close to calling it quits, even though this is what you've wanted since we were kids.

But I'm almost 100 over him, I swear!

The Jude that belonged to Tommy is almost gone completely now, and all that's left of her is a faded tattoo, (a faded _Tommy _inside my wrist) old photographs, ticket stubs, and memories that receded into the back of my mind.

He's disappearing

_**Fading suddenly  
**__**I'm so close to being yours  
**__**Wont you stay with me  
**__**Please?**_

Five more months have come and gone and you are getting closer and closer to your breaking point, but I'm almost there I tell you! Almost!

It's been a while since I've been Tommy's girl (but the tattoo is still there to remind me that I once was) yet at the same time, I'm not quite yours either. A little longer though, and I'm sure that I'll be there.

I'm still a little careful with giving my heart away, but I can't change that, and I'm not really all too sure if I want to, because that would signify me finally turning my back on Tommy and all that he and I had ever shared, and I don't know if I'm ready to do that just yet (the tattoo looks back at me tauntingly.)

I can't give all of that up until I'm absolutely sure.

The days come and go and before I know it, another eight months have passed me by with no sign of you (I go get the tattoo on my wrist redone again and it shines brighter now than ever before) until nine days before my twenty-fifth birthday, it's been over four years since we broke up now, but you call me nonetheless – the weather is warm, the air smells sickly sweet and I have finally grown into my body (my head still looks a little too big for it, though) – he calls me mid-afternoon, I have just come back from a draining day at the beach with my niece and two nephews (by now I'm thinking they are the closest I'll ever come to having a family of my very own), "I'm a father!" He exclaims suddenly, and I can almost feel the smile that's spread across his lips, (even though he's so many miles away from me) "I've got a daughter, girl!" That's when I know that I've lost him for good. "Congratulations," I feign happiness, when really all I feel is hurt and a distinct tugging at the stitches that hold my heart together after all these years.

"Have you got a name yet?" I ask, faking interest, all the while wondering if I'll ever see him again. "I think we've settled on Jude." He says to me, and I can feel the twinkle in his blue eyes, almost smiling for a moment there. "We thought that it was only fitting to name her after the girl that'll always have a special spot in my heart," Hah! I wanted to laugh out loud at that – had the past five years of my life been a mistake? Had _you _been a mistake?

I felt like breaking down and crying and telling him exactly how much I miss him (but I don't.) I can't bring myself to do it, because I know that it would only serve to further drive a wedge between you and I, and whether I like it or not, I have come to need you and depend on you (but it's still not half as much as I was dependent on Tommy.)

"Do you wanna see the pictures?" He asks, and I smile lightly despite it all. "Of course," I tell him, my phone vibrating gently in my hand signaling that the pictures have been sent. Jude has dark hair, thick and fluffy, and blue-gray eyes that had to have come from Tommy, while Tommy's hair is still dark, but not gelled like it had been the whole time that I had known him, and despite the fact that he could still pass as a twenty-four year old _hotshot _producer, I could still notice the age lines that had never been there before (I don't make it to the other two pictures, but focus solely on Tommy face, his hands, his body.)

"She's beautiful." A small smile touched my lips, leaving easily moments later. "Thank you. It means a lot." I could feel my eyes further soften at his soft, loving voice, smooth and rough at the same time. "Is that a gray I see Quincy?" I questioned with light laugh. "Never!" He denied profusely, reminding me that he would never go gray, even if he _did _have to go old, he'd do it with style – I didn't doubt that. "I've got to get going." He sighed; I could feel him rubbing his temples far away in perfect Florida. "Yeah, me too. I'd better get started for dinner." He chuckled lightly, "Oh god, who are you trying to poison?" He laughed, "Should I, you know, call the hospital and let them know?" I laughed along with him, thanking god my culinary skills had improved with both time and lots of cooking classes (twice a week for three months straight). "Ha ha." I said dryly, "You're so funny. But no, my cooking's improved. I know how to cook without sending someone to the emergency room." He sighed sadly, and I knew that the call had to end. "It's been good talking to you girl. But my fatherly duties call." "Take care, Tommy." I said sadly doubting that we'd ever speak again. "Goodbye Jude, you'll always be my number one girl. Always." I smiled lightly; I could almost feel his lips against mine for one last time. "And you'll always be my only." I told him, it was too late though, the only thing I could hear against my ear was the harsh, depressing dial tone that I could hear in my head for days afterwards.

After that though, I never heard from Tommy or even saw him again (the dial tone haunts me still).

Near to you, I am healing

_**But it's taking so long  
**__**Coz though he's gone  
**__**And you are wonderful  
**__**It's hard to move on  
**__**Yet, I'm better near to you**_

All that was years ago – I was twenty-five back then, and he had been thirty-two, and to some extent, we had both been happy with our lives.

It took a while, but a little over a year after little Judith Leigh DuTois was born, I finally committed myself to you (though still not in the same way that I'd been so committed to Tommy.) We were married four months before my twenty-sixth birthday, and eleven months later, at twenty-seven and a half years old, I gave birth to our first child, Thomas Jonathan Harrison (I insisted on having his last name as Harrison and not Andrews, even though we'd been married for a year.)

We had another two – at thirty years old, we were blessed with our second, Carolyn Natalie, and at thirty-four we had our baby Brittany Ryan Andrews.

But like I said, all that was years ago.

Although I was 110 committed to you, to our life, our marriage and our three children, I wont lie; I wasn't as happy as I thought that I would have been with my life, not when I kept comparing it to the way that it would have been with Tommy.

Thomas died at ten years old, he had a rare form of malignant cancer that ate away at him for six years before we finally let him have his peace. Eight months later, Tommy, my Tommy, my heart, my soul, my all – he died, and I was honestly never the same after that. After seven years of making music, which suffered without my producer slash co-writer and eternal love, I still can't write a song or pick up a guitar without crying my eyes out – it still feels like a fresh wound, as if it all happened just yesterday.

But it was so long ago.

And that day, the day that Tommy died, a little bit of my heart went with him, I think you lost me a little more that day.

I think that you were more than a little relieved when he died, because you had nothing more to compete with anymore, but the memory of a ghost, dead and buried, and after Tommy died, I finally let all of our memories go (the tattoo still remains untouched though,) and I finally gave into you.

I always knew I was better near to you.


End file.
